Beatrice Webb
-
An important and forceful left-wing intellectual (a shaper both of the
and of the
),
wrote at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century. Her subjects were social issues: for instance, unemployment, and the development of the co-operative movement and of trade unions. She was also (and from the same public-spirited motives) remarkable as a diarist and autobiographer. Almost all her writing on public topics (nearly forty publications, including eighteen monographs) was done in collaboration with her husband,
. So thoroughly are they thought of as one mind that joint biographies of them are more common than individual ones.
Biography
When in 1929 her husand accepted a title for political reasons, No one at any time did call her Lady Passfield. The title nevertheless appears in some library catalogues.
let it be known that she would not use the title which this would confer on her, nor in any other respect behave like the wife of a peer.
writes: